Friday, 4 November 2011

Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine

Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine

September 13, 2011–March 4, 2012

"The
exhibition explores caricature and satire in its many forms from the
Italian Renaissance to the present, drawn primarily from the rich
collection of this material in the Museum's Department of Drawings and Prints.

The show includes drawings and prints by Leonardo da Vinci, Eugène
Delacroix, Francisco de Goya, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Enrique
Chagoya alongside works by artists more often associated with humor,
such as James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, Honoré Daumier, Al Hirschfeld,
and David Levine.

Many of these engaging caricatures and satires have
never been exhibited and are little known except to specialists.

In its purest form, caricature—from the Italian carico and caricare,
"to load" and "to exaggerate"—distorts human physical characteristics
and can be combined with various kinds of satire to convey personal,
social, or political meaning.

Although caricature has probably existed
since artists began to draw (ancient examples are known), the form took
shape in Europe when Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of grotesque heads
were copied by followers and distributed as prints.

The exhibition's title derives from Hamlet, which is quoted
in a Civil War print that uses the famous line: "I knew him, Horatio; a
fellow of infinite jest" to mock Lincoln."